from the New York Times:

Bomb in Syria Kills Militant Sought as Terrorist

A militant sought as a terrorist?

George Packer echoes my thoughts and fears***:

What worries me about Obama’s campaign is that it’s increasingly a movement about a man. If you support his opponent, you’re against hope itself. The “Yes We Can” ditty that’s sweeping across the Web and mesmerizing two-year-olds (I know one) is a theme song of messianism. If he fails to win the nomination, the song could easily, swiftly change to “We Don’t Think We Want To.” Obama’s crusade is preparing the ground for a massive display of Democratic pique in the form of Party suicide.

There’s a more earthbound Clinton version of messianism-the arrogance of power. Some in her circle speak of Obama with an open contempt that only reveals their shallowness. There are a lot of reasons to like Obama and his message. And, at the moment, it doesn’t seem as if his campaign will need to prepare its mass following for disappointment: Obama’s long, slow burn is now exploding into a prairie fire. But I’d feel better if he stopped offering himself as the personal embodiment of hope. After all, if hope is defeated, what you get is despair.

On the other hand, what was once just a meme has now been taken into the actual political arena:

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, basked in cheers from crowds during a campaign swing through Texas, whose March 4 primary has become increasingly vital to her candidacy. She also contrasted what she called her “solutions” for voters’ financial struggles with what she termed the “rhetoric” of Mr. Obama, her rival for the Democratic nomination.

And half a continent away at a news conference in Washington, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, said Mr. Obama’s speeches had been “singularly lacking in specifics.”

And the blows landed:

Mr. Obama seemed to allude to the criticism of his rivals who suggest that he excels at rhetoric, but falls short on details, by saying at the outset of his remarks that he was going to “take it down a notch” by giving a speech that he said would be “a little more detailed, a little longer, with not as many applause lines.”

Yes, it’s hard to score points against political rivals when you’re spending your time seducing the public.

Obama is a quick study. He will adapt. But it feels like the perception of a sweep for Obama—the perception of momentum—has been stalled somewhat. Hillary looks stronger today than she did yesterday, although the suggestion that her campaign is willing to go to war with Obama over the Michigan and Florida delegates will keep the Hillary Hate flowing.
But the very surprising Romney endorsement means that the Republicans are starting to come to terms with McCain. That leaves battling Democrats at a disadvantage against (possibly) unifying Republicans.

What an incredible campaign season!

————-

*** On February 8, I referred to the “mania” surrounding Obama, and wrote:

Just a friendly reminder that depression usually follows mania.

For the record, I first referred to Obama as a mirage on January 8.

On PrezVid, they called it the Seinfeld campaign back in April 2007:

Why is the Obama campaign like the Seinfeld show? Because it’s about NOTHING!

Don’t tell me we can’t do something. Yes, we can! . . . yada yada yada . . . Let’s be the generation that ends poverty in America . . . yada yada yada . . . We know what to do with health care . . . yada yada yada . . . We’ve got to get beyond small politics . . .yada yada yada. . .We can do better than that. . . yada yada yada. . . We need to come together. . . yada yada yada . . . We’ve got to return to the spirt that built America . . . yada yada yada . . . It’s time for us to step up and meet these challenges . . . yada yada yada . . . This is not a campaign about me, it’s about you . . .yada yada yada. . .

And it’s still vapid after all this time …

Sometimes all you have are educated guesses, because so few facts are known or confirmed or confirmable—as in the case of the most gratifying assassination of the notorious Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyeh. 

Nasrallah blamed Israel, and then declared war. Israel rejected his attempt to assign blame.

Some educated guesses about whodunit to him.

This is some of what he done to us:

I read Engram’s blog with great pleasure, because of his methodical and data-filled critical analysis (or, rather, dismemberment) of the “trends” cited unilaterally as such by the MSM, although these “trends” are oftentimes not supported by meaningful evidence.

Engram tracks reductive bite-size memes (such as, say, “the surge is a failure”) , providing data points on a month-by-month basis, thus providing meaningful evidence accumulated over a period of time, which in turn is something that can fairly and reasonably be claimed to assess the truth (or the lies or the empty speculation) behind such claims.  

As Engram repeatedly notes (and as should be obvious but often isn’t), this is the only objective way to track actual (as opposed to rhetorical) trends (aka change).***

His neutral approach to accumulating and reporting the data doesn’t mean that Engram doesn’t have a point of view, however, or attitude. 

I admit that I share his attitude today, about the NYT’s one-year-long ”reporting” about the “surge” being (first) doomed and (then) a failure. Engram writes [e.a.]:

But in their editorial [published] right after the testimony by Petraeus (in September of 2007), the editors [of the New York Times] adopted the standard liberal line according to which the whole purpose of the troop surge was give Iraqi politicians time to pass political benchmarks:

The chief objective of the surge was to reduce violence enough that political leaders in Iraq could learn to work together, build a viable government and make decisions to improve Iraqi society, including sharing oil resources.

This has become a standard liberal talking point even though it is factually inaccurate. The left switched to this talking point after their prediction that the troop surge would not reduce violence in Iraq was proven wrong. Instead of acknowledging how wrong they were about that, they seamlessly invented a new story about the “real” purpose of the surge. It is a story that exists in the liberal brain but is nowhere to be found in Bush’s speech to the nation in which he explained the purpose of the troop surge (which the New York Times criticized for not focusing on political reconciliation in Baghdad).

In any case, as the horrid news of greatly reduced violence in Iraq becomes increasingly inescapable even to those who are so blind that they cannot see that we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, talk of political reconciliation (and attendant pessimism about that) has become standard on the left (in the New York Times as well). Unfortunately, more horrid news of political reconciliation in Iraq is starting to pile up, so much so that the editors had to painfully acknowledge that fact in their editorial today:

Making (Some) Progress in Iraq

Good news is rare in Iraq. But after months of bitter feuding, Iraq’s Parliament has finally approved a budget, outlined the scope of provincial powers, set an Oct. 1 date for provincial elections and voted a general amnesty for detainees.

Of course, the same editors who declared that Iraq was a failure, that the troop surge would be of no help, and that General Petraeus was lying about a massive reduction in violence are now somewhat pessimistic that these laws will be effectively implemented. Gee, that’s significant. After all, these crack journalists have proven time and again that they know what they are talking about, haven’t they?

No, “these [New York Times] journalists” often don’t know what they are talking about. They are not any better-informed than many dozens of well-informed members of the public who have created opinion platforms for themselves in the blogosphere. They are often peddling a narrative line.

Some of “these journalists” give the impression of being humiliatingly ill-informed. (Although I’ll admit there’s a silver lining in Alessandra Stanley’s inability to remember which cable “news” outlet it is that boasts, probably dozens of times in every 24-hour-period, that it has ”the best political team on television.” Propaganda is only successful if it sticks.)

—————- 

*** I would add this: Everything else is speculation or deliberate manipulation, aimed at influencing public opinion—aka propaganda. And McLuhan was right: the medium is the message.

I’m neither a futurist nor an interested party (except as a book lover and casual observer of trends who looks forward to a bright future for books when their content will be offered through many channels and via many platforms), but Evan Schnittman’s scenario about the pedestrian future of e-books [bottom line: they should and will, he predicts, be free] seems plausible to me:

My thinking was somewhat influenced by the events of the last couple of weeks. First Steve Jobs is quoted about the Kindle saying “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” One week later, Don Katz sold Audible, his digital audio platform and online retail store that was to spoken word recording what iTunes is to digital music, to Amazon for $300mm. Audible licenses its platform to Apple for use on the iPod/iTunes.

In my mind a connection was made between these events as I started to wonder if Jobs, smarting over the loss of Audible’s platform, was lashing out at Amazon. Then I wondered if this was a classic Jobs line - deflecting any interest in something and then a year later releasing that very thing. However, this idle speculation ebbed and a more interesting connection took its place - a link established in my mind between ebooks and audiobooks.

I have evolved my thinking to see that a “thriving” ebook market will look much more like the audio book market than the print book market. (I should mention that I see the parallel only in size, scope, and type of audience, not in market factors, content delivery, cost of production, or experiential preference. Audio books are not about reading - ebooks are all about reading.)

If one looks closely at how people like me use ebooks, you will see that convenience and portability is what drives use. While ebooks have been around for nearly 10 years in fairly usable forms, the devices to read them have been terrible - until now with the recent generation of e-ink readers such as the Kindle. (Yes, there are plenty of people who are perfectly happy reading on their PDA, iphone, laptop, etc - but let’s be honest; they are a tiny and low revenue producing audience.)

The growth I see in ebooks mimics the audio book phenomenon- by connecting readers who commute or travel with the content they crave. Audiobooks have made a marketplace out of people getting book content when they cannot read and has taught people to enjoy being read to again. Similarly, Ebooks are a brilliant option when you can bring everything you are reading with you and an even better option when you can buy instantly wherever you happen to be - just as digital audio downloads onto an iPod have done for the folks who don’t want to schlep around CD’s or cassettes.

 Via Michael Cader at Publishers Marketplace [subscription required]:

Returning to the Free eBook with Purchase Idea
Oxford’s Evan Schnittman has a two-part post on Oxford blog asking “Do I Believe in Ebooks?” Ultimately, what he does believe is that “an ebook license be granted as part of the purchase price to anyone who buys a new print book.”

He writes: “I have come to this somewhat radical idea, not because I am one of the folks who believe all digital content should be free for the benefit of mankind. Nor did I come to this conclusion because I don’t believe there will ever be a place for ebooks. I came to this conclusion after becoming a fairly heavy user of ebooks and learning first hand what is best and worst about ebooks.

“The reality is that even if the current audience of ebook users were to grow by magnitudes over the next few years, the total market would only reach 3 to 4% of print. Therefore we must admit to ourselves as an industry that ebooks will always be a small niche player as a standalone platform and make them free with new book purchases.

“Making ebooks free with new print books will be an operational puzzle that most will scoff at. While there certainly are huge issues to overcome, there are already many initiatives and ventures in place that make such a notion feasible.

“In the end this could be a marketer and merchandiser dream. I believe moving to free ebooks with the purchase of a new print title would cost or lose the industry nothing in sales as ebooks would still be available for individual purchase for those who don’t want to spend on print. What we would gain is that books - print books - would increase in value and utility.”

Recent post
First post

I await the bright future of a world awash with the cumulative information—and wisdom—of all mankind.

And I wish for every person access to the information and wisdom that can set him/her free.

It was in that spirit that I once wrote:

If you love books, set them free.